Faith@Ease

I never hear the Kenny Rogers’ recording of “The Gambler” without recalling an editor colleague in Boston who spontaneously broke into singing Rogers’ song while we line-checked stories and wrote headlines on the copy-desk.

During our tenures on the Boston copy desk, I sang in a neighborhood choral group, and I discovered during a summer choral festival that Billy also sang in his neighborhood concert choir.

But even that discovery of the shared love of choral singing didn’t match Billy’s workplace confession that he loved to sing “The Gambler.”

Billy also frequently complimented an investigative writer at the newspaper, noting that particular writer was “Just one of three journalists in the world who understands the proper use of a semicolon.”

That comment drove me to strengthen my grasp of semicolon usage.

I only worked with Billy for a few years, but two things I sadly recall: he once severely cut his hand as he pressed down the contents of a trash can at home that was hiding broken glass. Also, I learned several years after I left Boston that Billy had died young–in his mid-40s–from what his obituary described as “a massive heart attack.”

However, my most vivid image of him comes from those times during a lull on the copy desk when Billy broke into song with the lines “you’ve got to know when to hold ’em; know when to fold ’em.”

Come to think of it; those words could be an adage for copy editors! And, yes, Billy had a performer’s baritone singing voice.

Then there’s my boyhood remembrance of George, who taught me the word bandolier, and the name of a place called The Vale of Tralee.

George was a late-comer to our conglomerate of friends growing as teenagers in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood.

He had dropped out of school and became a member of a street gang. About the time he turned seventeen, George, through the influence of parents, friends, and probably a couple of priests, was re-enrolled in St. Michael’s High School in Bay Ridge.

There he befriended several of my neighborhood friends, and he began hanging out with us, a tiny group of mostly Irish, Roman Catholic choirboys and altar boys, and me, the lone Protestant in the entourage.

George and I discovered a mutual enjoyment of singing, and he began teaching me the Irish songs he knew and loved.

“The Irish Soldier Boy,” one of George’s favorites, taught me the word bandolier, and I can still hear George’s melodious tenor singing the line, “and with loving arms around his waist, she tied his bandolier.” In a way, this song expressed George’s thinking about maternal love and courage. I like to believe these ideas he absorbed from singing had rescued him from juvenile delinquency.

George also taught me the opening verse of “The Rose of Tralee,” a sad Irish love song. Ingrained in my brain because of George are the lines, “Yet, ’twas not her beauty alone that won me; Oh, no, ’twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning, that made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.”

This song had been popular during my young years through earlier recordings of the Irish tenor Dennis Day and crooner Bing Crosby, but even those stars didn’t sing “The Rose of Tralee” like George.

I later discovered Tralee is a bay on the southwestern coast of County Kerry in Ireland, and today the Vale of Tralee is the name given the stadium of the Tralee Rugby Football Club.

Memory tells me George, who wasn’t a skilled player in our games of stickball, softball, or baseball in our Brooklyn neighborhood, probably would have been a superior rugby player.

Incidentally, we all learned from boyhood matches at the PAL (Police Athletic League) gym that George was an excellent boxer.

I mostly remember that George and Billy sure loved to sing, and they taught me lifelong lessons about semicolons, Ireland, and the power of singing.

It’s a shame there isn’t a Hall of Fame for singing copy editors and boyhood boxers.

Having fallen slightly behind in steering readers during each season to four poems that I have added to my personal favorites anthology, I’m changing my approach a bit. I am following Robert Pinsky’s suggestion that building such an anthology must come from writing out each poem (not just reading, memorizing, or cataloging it) line by line, word by word, placing each letter, word, and punctuation mark on one’s copy paper with one’s own hand-held writing instrument (3).

I’ve decided that instead of just referencing these poems for readers of this blog to track down, I am going to write a favorite poem out for you to consider. (I’ve done this for myself with each poem I’ve previously selected, but I have only shared my copying once before.)

My poem for the winter of 2018 is “Praise Song” by Lucille Clifton (1).

I discovered Clifton’s poetry as a young professor teaching at a community college. I rediscovered this particular poem of hers last week while perusing Billy Collins’ 2003 anthology Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry. (2)

Praise Song
By Lucille Clifton

to my aunt blanche
who rolled from grass to driveway
into the street one sunday morning.
I was ten.              I had never seen
a human woman hurl her basketball
body into the traffic of the world.
Praise to the drivers who stopped in time.
Praise to the faith with which she rose
after some moments then slowly walked
sighing back to her family.
Praise to the arms which understood
little or nothing of what it meant
but welcoming her in without judgment,
accepting it all like children might,
like God.

References:

(1) Clifton, Lucille. Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poetry (1988-2000), Rochester: BOA Editions. 2000.

(2) Collins, Billy. Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry. New York: Random House. 2003.

–Collins compiled this anthology as a project during his years as America’s Congressional Poet Laureate. It is aimed primarily at high school students encouraging them to read a poem every one of the 180 days they are required to be in school.
The Library of Congress maintains an annually updated version of Collins’ anthology at https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/p180-list.html. Sadly, the poem of Clifton, who died in 2010, has been replaced in the latest online iteration.

(3) Pinsky, Robert. Singing School: Learning to Read (and Write) Poetry by Studying With the Masters. New York: W. W. Norton. 2003.